Narcisism!

xxxxhelpxxxx

I think I am starting to recognise traits in my husband. I have got a thread on here about infidelity.

He is the one who has been off with another woman but it is being turned into my fault. The world revolves around him and no-one else's opinion is right. It is his way or no way!!

I discussed it briefly with a counsellor today - it might be something we come back to at a later date.

Shelanne

My mother is difficult to say the least, I have just learned about narcissism and it seems to be a perfect fit for her behaviour.

She won't come to my wedding in Gretna Green unless I drive her home the next day personally, carried on like it was the worst kind of personal insult to her that I wanted to spend two nights away with my new husband when friends offered to take the children for us.

As we actually walked away from my late husbands death bed she started to remind me that she too had lost a husband (my dad left her some 23 years earlier) but it was worse for her because I would get alot of sympathy as I was a widow with three young children. This within half an hour of me learning that my darling husband had died.

I could go on but it would get boring.

My question is.... Is it really a sickness or is she doing it deliberately? Can she help herself? If this is an illness then I have to extend sympathy and understanding, if she is just being a B***ch I can distance myself from her without blame or guilt. I have already distanced myself a good deal to protect my daughters from the abuse that I have suffered for so many years. All the time I just feel that I need to find more patience, but I have my own life to get on with and need to not spend so much energy on trying to pacify her and her rages.

All comments would be gratefully received. Thanks.

whitewing

I think having a personality disorder can cause you to be more prone to act in specific bad manner (diagnosis of a pd is based on the traits that may it difficult to function in your usual culture). But virtually always the ultimate responsibility for your behaviour lies with you. My dad has narcissistic traits - possibly narcisstic pd - but he knows full well his attitude/actions upset people, although he of course thinks we're wrong to be upset. He is worse - aren't we all - when stressed. I say "virtually always" because I think there would be once-in-a-lifetime occasions that would push a 'normal' person to their limit that could push someone less able to cope into the realms of complete lunacy for a while.

I don't necessarily think that people with pds know how to change their behaviour by themselves though. I think as mental health issues ecome more widely discussed then it will be eaiser for people to identify and seek help. Afaik, a symptom of narcissm is that you would not seek a diagnosis or acknowledge anything wrong, but I think society could still learn to manage it better.

Steel_2

Shelanne wrote: »

My question is.... Is it really a sickness or is she doing it deliberately? Can she help herself? If this is an illness then I have to extend sympathy and understanding, if she is just being a B***ch I can distance myself from her without blame or guilt. I have already distanced myself a good deal to protect my daughters from the abuse that I have suffered for so many years. All the time I just feel that I need to find more patience, but I have my own life to get on with and need to not spend so much energy on trying to pacify her and her rages.

All comments would be gratefully received. Thanks.

I don't think it's a sickness or that she's doing it deliberately. It's a tough one to pigeonhole.


They instantly think about everything in relation to them, them being more important than any thing else, so in that respect I think it is involuntary, but they are able to use control and manipulation to get what they want and control themselves around others - usually outsiders in the family - so in that respect it is deliberate.

If you extend sympathy and understanding you will be giving her a supply of what she wants - attention - but ultimately it will end up consuming you because she will become very demanding and want you to put her before yourself and your family.

It's not like a normal person who you can spend time with and then go on your way feeling a little satisfaction and happiness at having been with them. Interactions with normal people are a two way street, but they aren't with a narcissist. A narcissist will take and take and take and give nothing back. You usually feel worse when you leave than when your arrived. They will escalate their attention-seeking controlling behaviour to levels beyond what you are willing and happy to give and they won't care if you're unhappy.

My personal rules for dealing with them:

• Reduce contact for your own wellbeing. If they do something nasty, go no contact. You can teach them to treat you better, but it takes a long time and the lessons need repeating frequently. In the past I've been no contact with my father for anything between three months up to two years.
• Dump the guilt. Big one this.
• Never reveal anything they could use as a stick to beat you with and never confide in them. Never tell them what you are really doing, what you are planning or about the achievements your are most proud off.
• Never have them with you during something important to you or when you're feeling vulnerable, like a funeral or if you or yours is ill.
• Don't indulge their silliness or listen to their rubbish with anything but half an ear, because as someone else said, you're damned if your do and you're damned if you don't, so you might as well not bother.
• Don't have a problem leaving instantly or get off the phone straight away when you've had enough or if they look like they're in a bad mood and a rage is imminent.
• If they play up and are nasty when you are alone, always make sure someone is with you as a witness. Plan carefully so you never end up alone with them.
• Get caller ID so if they ring 5,6,7 times a day to wail or abuse you, you can ignore and not pick up.
• Put any nasty letters in the bin (remembering that whatever is in there is untrue and untter rubbish) and act dumbfounded when they ask you if you got it. Blame the post in your area.

If they think they have hurt you, their satisfaction and sense of power increases. Eventually when they can't get a response from you they switch to someone else.

butterflylady131

Steel-pretend 1echidna is a narcissist, and ignore )
The more I read this thread, the more I see that my MIL is like Meritaten's. A friend once called people like this "Smiling Assasins"! They are nice to your face, but do the poor me thing behind your back. My MIL is exactly like this. I have been informed by DH on more than one occasion that I should apologise to MIL for something I'm supposed to have done. Purely imaginary situations she's conjured up to create some kind of drama. She loves to play the victim too.
I recently gave birth to a beautiful girl, MIL has been to see her 3 times, and she's 5 and a half months old. It's because she has to come to our house to see her, and we won't travel all over Yorkshire trying to find her! sad really, but I'm determined to protect DD from the abuse DH has suffered, and is still suffering.

1echidna

butterflylady131 wrote: »

Steel-pretend 1echidna is a narcissist, and ignore )
The more I read this thread, the more I see that my MIL is like Meritaten's. A friend once called people like this "Smiling Assasins"! They are nice to your face, but do the poor me thing behind your back. My MIL is exactly like this. I have been informed by DH on more than one occasion that I should apologise to MIL for something I'm supposed to have done. Purely imaginary situations she's conjured up to create some kind of drama. She loves to play the victim too.
I recently gave birth to a beautiful girl, MIL has been to see her 3 times, and she's 5 and a half months old. It's because she has to come to our house to see her, and we won't travel all over Yorkshire trying to find her! sad really, but I'm determined to protect DD from the abuse DH has suffered, and is still suffering.

Actually I was making a serious point. Narcissistic personality disorder is a serious mental condition. From the OPs posting you would think he would do some googling.

FatVonD

Steel wrote: »

[*]Never reveal anything they could use as a stick to beat you with and never confide in them. Never tell them what you are really doing, what you are planning or about the achievements your are most proud off.

Very good rule, in the past when I'm trying to be a *good* daughter I've confided things to my mum but I know it'll be brought up at a later date. I told her when I argued with my FIL once and I know that one day she'll fall out with my inlaws (because she falls out with everyone at some point) and I know she'll bring up it up as ammunition.

Steel wrote: »

[*]Don't have a problem leaving instantly or get off the phone straight away when you've had enough or if they look like they're in a bad mood and a rage is imminent.

Another good rule, on one occasion when she'd started yelling at me as I got out of my car on arrival I walked in the house, said hello to my dad (as she followed me down the hall yelling 'oh, you can say hello to him but not me' then walked back, got back in the car and drove home again. On another occasion I didn't even make it out of the car.

meritaten

Please - can we all just play nicely? I guess the comment about spelling narcissism was directed at me, as I am the one who mis-spelled it in the title. I suffer mainly with number dyslexia, but do get certain words which I cannot spell for the life of me. I spent ages practising it so that my fingers remember how to type it even if my brain doesnt!
Can we drop it now please - I would hate for this thread to get locked too - not just because it was started by me..........but a few people have said that it has helped them! that is the purpose of the forum isnt it?

meritaten

Shelanne wrote: »

My mother is difficult to say the least, I have just learned about narcissism and it seems to be a perfect fit for her behaviour.

She won't come to my wedding in Gretna Green unless I drive her home the next day personally, carried on like it was the worst kind of personal insult to her that I wanted to spend two nights away with my new husband when friends offered to take the children for us.

As we actually walked away from my late husbands death bed she started to remind me that she too had lost a husband (my dad left her some 23 years earlier) but it was worse for her because I would get alot of sympathy as I was a widow with three young children. This within half an hour of me learning that my darling husband had died.

I could go on but it would get boring.

My question is.... Is it really a sickness or is she doing it deliberately? Can she help herself? If this is an illness then I have to extend sympathy and understanding, if she is just being a B***ch I can distance myself from her without blame or guilt. I have already distanced myself a good deal to protect my daughters from the abuse that I have suffered for so many years. All the time I just feel that I need to find more patience, but I have my own life to get on with and need to not spend so much energy on trying to pacify her and her rages.

All comments would be gratefully received. Thanks.

I wouldnt say it was a sickness hun, its more of a mental DISORDER. Narcissists arent stupid - they know the rules of good behaviour and they know when they step outside those rules! They just justify the circumstances to theirselves (and others) by claiming 'extreme provocation' 'not normally like them', or 'he/she just made me so mad', they may even pay lip service to apology. but in any event it will be blamed elsewhere!

You dont need to cope with this unless you absolutely have to!

I cannot help feeling that I had it easy not dealing with the 'Diva' type. Don't know how I would have coped with that! prob by walking out and never darkening her door again!

Dontknowanymore

My father is extremely narsassistic, probs the wrong spelling but you all know what I'm on about
He displays every single trait massively and to say growing up with a narssassistic father is mental torture, is putting it mildly.
I had to cut him off for my own sanity just after my 1st son was born, imagine being in labour, on the way to the hospital and fretting with your Mum about when to call him to let him know I was in labour.
I didn't want him there but was too scared to tell him, so we called him when we got to the hospital. BIG mistake! We should of called him the minute my waters broke.
He spent the whole 14 hours before I went down to have an emergency c-section scowling at my Mum and generally intimidating us. Then my ex turned up and that just made him even worse! He didn't say anything to my ex (too chicken shoite for that!) but when I came out of theatre, the ex was gone and my father was seething.
I was paralysed from the neck down and couldn't pick the baby up, so Mum did and was feeding him, my father then proceeded to rant at me and my mum about how we were out of order for not including him, etc etc. Then the evil bastage threatened to kill my Mum by saying he was gonna throw her out of the window! She was holding my newborn baby

We grew up walking on eggshells around him, we lived with long silences, being ignored, he's never told us he loves us, talks down to everyone like everyone is below him.
He would on occassion subject us to 3+ hour rants, sometimes running into early hours of the morning and we were children! about how we have failed him, we are an embarrassment, he does everything for us and we give nothing in return. Another time when I was pregnant, I had just come out of hospital after having a premature labour stopped, he made me STAND in his kitchen for 3 hours ranting at me, I was 19 years old, that is how much control he had.
He would be able to recall incidents that happened years ago and bring them up, always forgetting his part in it all, because, of course, he is perfect and NEVER does anything wrong.
He was physically abusive to my Mum and one thing that she says she found really sadistic was that he never apologised, like a lot of abusers, there was no praying for forgiveness, no promises it wouldn't happen again.

He is a complete user especially with woment, does not show any love and the minimal affection, lead double/triple lives, kidnapped my sister when my mum left once. Seriously, the list is endless as to what he has done.
He committed a massive fraud against my Mum and I went to court as a witness against him, it was the most terryfiying thing I had done to date, but I'm so glad I did, it took back control, the same for my Mum, it took her about 6 months to actually report him when she found out but I think going through with it really helped her move on. 25 years she put up with that, and even for a couple of years after she left, he stalked her, tried to run her off the road, would use mind games to try and turn us against eachother etc etc. Oh and he also beat my sister up when she walked in on him in their office with another bird and said she was gonna tell my Mum!

No wonder I ended up with an abuser!